Former Mich. resident, a Tigers fan, among Virginia Tech victims

4/18/2007
DETROIT (AP) -- A 25-year-old graduate student and former Michigan resident who was an avid fan of the Detroit Tigers was among those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre, the team and a friend said.

The announcement of Brian Bluhm's death was made before the team's game Tuesday night at Comerica Park against the Kansas City Royals, which Detroit went on to win 7-6. A moment of silence also was observed for victims of Monday's massacre.

Bluhm grew up in the Detroit suburb of Troy and moved when he was about 7, the Detroit Free Press reported. He was to graduate in two weeks with a master's degree from Virginia Tech, The Detroit News reported.

Bluhm was a regular on online message boards discussing the Tigers. He also was among the top friends on Tigers centerfielder Curtis Granderson's page on online networking Web site MySpace.com.

"I had yet to meet him, but through the world of MySpace, you kind of get close to who he is," said Granderson, who made Bluhm the No. 1 friend on his MySpace page on Tuesday.

One fan in the stands for Tuesday night's game had a poster that read: "RIP" in Bluhm's memory.

Monday's campus rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart -- first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including the gunman, died.

Bluhm received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering at Virginia Tech and was getting ready to defend his thesis. He already had accepted a job in Baltimore, said Bluhm's close friend, Michael Marshall of Richmond, Va.

Bluhm moved from Iowa to Detroit to Louisville, Ky., before coming to Virginia Tech. His parents moved to Winchester, Va., while he was in school, so Blacksburg became his real home, Marshall said.

Bluhm also loved the Hokies, and a close group of friends often traveled to away football games. But Marshall said it was his faith and work with the Baptist Collegiate Ministries that his friend loved most.

"Brian was a Christian, and first and foremost that's what he would want to be remembered as," Marshall said.

Bluhm was a thoughtful and prolific writer who was a member of the Motownsports.com Web site, The News reported. He had posted almost 35,000 times over the past five years -- many talking about the team's games.

"The online community is hard for people to understand," Alan Chichester, 26, from Swartz Creek, told the newspaper. "But when it came to the Tigers, there was no one more passionate or more intelligent about the Tigers, and no greater guy, than Brian."

"When you're hanging on every pitch and every at-bat for multiple summers, you do grow close to these people."

In Louisville, he graduated from duPont Manual High School in 2000, school officials said. Jefferson County (Ky.) Public Schools spokeswoman Lauren Roberts said that Manual Principal Beverly Keepers recalled Bluhm as a National Honor Society member and "very smart."

"He was a little quiet ... but just a really nice young man," Roberts told The Courier-Journal in Louisville.